Though her son has offered to buy her a private island on multiple occasions, Amy Harris continues to live in her downtown apartment, which she pays for by working at the library. She has worked at the library since before Martin was born, and now her face is beginning to look more like the pages of a book that hasn’t been taken off the shelf in a long time. By no means, however, has she let herself go. The six flights of stairs one must climb to reach her apartment keep her legs strong, and she insists on going to the gym after most of the day spent on her feet.

It is up these stairs that our villain refuses to climb. He would land his private helicopter on the roof, but his mother hates it when he flaunts his money, so he takes the elevator instead. Inside, there stands a child about five years old, trying with difficulty to push the fifth floor button.

Mortimer slips into the elevator and waits for the boy to push the button, but the child stops and looks expectantly at Mortimer, who pretends not to notice; he detests children.

After a long silence, the boy asks, “Could you hit number five for me?”

“No.”

One thing Mortimer does like about children is their ability to accept certain things more readily than adults. The boy returns to his work, and eventually jumps high enough to hit the correct button. Mortimer leans over, careful not to touch the thing, and pushes the button for the sixth floor.

As the boy departs from the elevator, he turns to Mortimer and says, “You’re mean.”

As the door inches shut, our villain is tempted to shoot the impetuous child with his silenced automatic pistol that he carries in his pocket, but his mother hates it when he kills her neighbors.

Soon, he steps off the elevator onto the sixth floor, walks several feet down the hallway, and knocks on the door marked 611. Amy Harris answers the door after only a few moments.